Acceptance is a state of open receptivity, a willingness to invite in even the most unwelcome guests, and an ability to turn toward that which you resist. The more you embrace suffering and come to know it, the less you’re compulsively driven by avoiding it. You experience a certain “lightness of being.”
–Janetti Marotta in 50 Mindful Steps to Self-Esteem
The Song of the Runaway Antelopes
This is the time
Of the antelopes.
Of roaming the grasslands,
Struggling through underbrush,
Climbing fallen boulders,
Basking for moments
in the summer sun
And finding home.
Home that is a place
In the heart of the woods.
A place hidden in a valley
Covered in emerald green moss.
Rising to the sky
Is a canopy of trees
So velvet are the leaves
They fall like feathers from the stars.
There’s a laughing stream
With smiling fish
And poke-a-dot water lilies.
In one tiny inlet
The water bubbles in a hot bath
Teasing the antelopes
To come in, naked.
It’s a magical place.
Every day the antelopes
See more of its magic.
And with each passing wondrous moment
They see more of their own magic.
They are in such harmony
With its rhythm
Their hearts beat to the song
From the heart of the woods.
This is the song of the runaway antelopes
Who have found their way home.
–Janetti Marotta
